Ice Burns Read online

  It had focused on the world before the royal family in the frozen lands had abolished all magic. There were always rumors that the king and queen had done this so that they could continue to use their magic without rivalry from other magic users. The Northern country had been without magic for many generations. The books referred to what were magical practices as religions among the uneducated masses. It attributed further proof as the belief in great gods and goddesses who ruled in so many pagan and ancient lands.

  Most of the mythological stories documented were about great deeds of the divine were not all so fantastic when viewed through the scope that magic did indeed exist in the world. A god who could levitate and throw giant boulders or even some trees or a goddess who could influence the nearby body of water was feasible as something a mage could do. Some stories were implausible, however. No mage in history could summon living beings immediately to his or her side or cause a blizzard to ravage an entire country. Use of that power would be unsustainable by one individual, and no mage had yet been able to find a way to link their power to another to increase the benefit or destructive abilities of their power. Each mage's power was unique to the individual and could not be used to add to that of another.

  Master had told her once of mages who had tried to merge their power to cause the earth to crumble a castle. The attempt had instead called the destructive power down upon the individuals, destroying all three mages. Master Dreys told her that much like the lines on a person's palm, the power within is unique.

  "Trying to blend magic is a waste of effort no matter the intent," Master had shaken his head. "The only possible result would be one mage taking over another. Magic is tied to the individual's soul and resonates from within them. It is true that mages who come from particular regions seem to have a better grasp on a certain element, but the source of that power is still the individual. To do so would be to acknowledge how little you perceive the other’s life to be worth, even if it would mean an incredible amount of power."

  Master paused. His brown eyes were warm and focused on something somewhere behind Chandra.

  "Royalty is only one path to power, but taking another's magic is akin to taking their very soul," he said finally and nodded. When he found out she had been reading one of his books, she had been locked in her room without food for two days.

  Chandra was too afraid to ask Master what it meant. Once he had gone back to his book, practice resumed balancing a spoon on the tip of her finger. She had always been good at that but doubted it had anything to do with magic.

  Master made it very clear that he didn't believe that one family should control all magic, of course, and there had always been messengers from other territories that reported to him. Master always received them in private, but that hadn't stopped Chandra or servants from lingering outside the study when he took their missives.

  Chandra had listened outside of his study after he dismissed her due to the arrival of a messenger. The heavy door muted the sounds of their voices, but Chandra had still managed to hear some of the conversation.

  "...does he know about the death?" Master asked. Chandra only heard every other word from the young messenger. Something about "torture" and "lost cavern" but nothing more.

  "Fine. Tell his lordship to hold off...no need send mages... death," Master said, and Chandra pictured him looking down at his desk and taking notes, further muffling his voice. "Take this to your Master and don't get caught."

  Chandra had barely enough time to register how distinct Master's voice was before she heard the door open.

  She slid on the floor as she hurried to duck behind the nearest tapestry, but she wasn’t quick enough to avoid being seen by the messenger. He smiled at her under a hood that only showed the narrow tip of his nose and the glint of light on his teeth. Thankfully, he didn’t stop or turn her in because Master Dreys came out next.

  "Damned King and his assassins are costing us too many lives to worry about finding it now," Master mumbled as the footsteps hurried away. "In time, though..."

  Chandra heard his steps and then the door closing and the muffled tapping of his feet as he walked across his study to his desk and she slid out from behind the wall hanging to hurry to her room. She had been young enough at the time to be little more than a wrinkle in the fabric and had returned to her room feeling as though Master had an extensive plan to protect mages. Her young mind had drawn him into a hero. Unfortunately, the image was ruined the following day when she saw him strike a maid for letting his tea go cold.

  Chandra paused in her reading about causing an object to twirl in the air when she recalled a story about a god who was able to create and throw fire. Manipulation of elements that were present was easy enough for most mages, but to call and manipulate it would take more power than anything she had ever read. Chandra doubted there was a mage, living or dead, who could do such a thing. The most powerful mage she had ever seen was Master, and he could do no more than prevent the hearth fire from dying out or strengthen the blaze through magic.

  Fire is not something Master could easily manipulate, though. Master is strongest when he connects to earth. I've known him to help plants flourish, coax the soil to move, or cause rocks to shift around. Everything he can do, all of his connections, he did the night of the fire.

  Chandra's thoughts were interrupted by a sound outside her window. It was more of the birds squawking in the same way they had that had startled her while working with the goblet. She stood up and stretched before walking to the window. Several Tanagers were flying around in an agitated fashion, and Chandra leaned as far into the window as she could to see if there was a wild cat or similar predator below them that was causing them to act that way. She stood still and watched the undergrowth and ground branches for a few moments but didn't see any movement other than the Golden Tanagers squawking and a few Seedeaters that couldn't seem to settle on a tree limb.

  She knew it wasn't the right time of year for mating, but couldn't see anything from her limited vantage point. She shrugged and turned back toward the table where the repetitive reading waited for her. Chandra looked around at the chamber that had become her bedroom a few months ago. She had previously been in an opulent suite adjacent to Master's, near the warmth of the kitchen. Master Dreys told her that the fire had destroyed the room she had once occupied and damaged a great deal of Master's private chamber as well.

  Chandra cocked her head. No wonder Master was going on a trip since his rooms would need a significant amount of work. Her chamber was one typically given to a new student to the estate. Chandra doubted Master Dreys would be willing to step down into basic accommodations like where he had moved his apprentice. He had told her the move would give her "fewer distractions." She hadn't dared ask for more after Master's recent displays of impatience toward her. Chandra knew any request she made now would likely be answered with a "Hard work equals rewards, apprentice." Or worse: angry stares and silence.

  Chandra knew that her inability to manifest magic the way Master expected reflected poorly on him. Master was an amazing mage, even with his limitations. With his earth magic, Master also had formidable levitation abilities. Most mages, from a young age, could levitate some objects so long as they weren't too heavy. Most could levitate equal to what they might be able to lift otherwise.

  With that comparison, I'm as capable as a toddler.

  Chandra frowned and considered Master's strength in levitation and earth. She guessed that if Master was angered, there was a good chance he would be able to fling at least some large rocks with his powers alone. A picture came to her of Master lifting a house-sized boulder and crushing Chandra with it, all without messing up his robes. She shuddered and lifted the book as the image burned itself into her brain.

  She thought again about how it still fell to a mage to utilize elements which were already available. Chandra snorted.

  Fire-calling gods. Right.

  Chandra sighed at the picture of a person's hand and a book
floating above it in the levitation manual. She had not been able to manipulate elements or do simple levitation. Chandra couldn't make fire strengthen or weaken, cause ripples in a glass of water, coax the earth to open even enough to plant a seedling, and had never managed to stir the wind into shuffling the driest leaf. The elements did not seem to hear her, and she wasn't sure if she could even speak a language to make them understand what she asked.

  The bird-ruckus called her attention away from her thoughts again, and Chandra snarled.

  "Put a cork in it, birds! I'm trying to figure out what's wrong with me in here!"

  For a moment, the squawking continued and then it silenced as though they had settled themselves to obey her commands. Chandra laughed softly at the idea of birds listening to her. Perhaps she could climb into the trees and live with them. It wasn't as though there was anywhere else she could go.

  If Chandra had somewhere, anywhere, she belonged in the world; she would have given up on magic and run away. It was one of the many issues with being a woman: women had no power in life or industry. If Chandra had been lucky enough to find an apprenticeship at a young age with weaving, cooking or even farming, she could make her life working for someone else until she was able to wed or death found her, whichever happened first. That was all beside the fact that she was an orphan and had no family anywhere to take her in or help her until she came of age.

  The world as a whole was a rough place. Chandra only knew one home even if it had never really felt that way.

  She picked up the book again and settled on her bed to read it as many times as it took for her to figure out how to levitate something.

  Anything.

  Chandra was not ready to be tossed out or replaced, so she had to make herself the apprentice that Master Dreys wanted or die trying.

  Chandra was raised with the belief that she would be one of the most powerful mages the world had ever known. It all had to happen in secret. Magic equaled death, after all. None of the ruled countries ever disobeyed that directive from the Northern Kingdom of Faust. Chandra saw people being carted away now and then from her home at the edge of the desert. Master had explained where they were going and that they would not return even if they were innocent. The crime was possession of magic. The charges went uninvestigated; the rumor was enough to end up in a wagon in chains. There was also never a shortage of people hauled away; people would always turn on each other in anger, fear, or because they wanted something another person had. The beggar, heretic, or even debtor would be sent away to Faust if there was a rumor that they possessed any magic at all. Their families or friends were left to mourn the loss.

  The kingdom of Faust, which was the seat of power in the frozen North continent of Areen, was where the King, Queen and soon enough, the princess ruled. Faust was not a place anyone went on purpose. The tundra and sparse forests that formed the border were anything but picturesque in their naked, blackened fingers that reached for the gray skies overhead. The royal family and those seeking to remain in their favor or those serfs and peasants who had no other choice were the only inhabitants in or near the kingdom. In an area where many fought just to survive in such an unforgiving climate, newcomers were viewed with suspicion.

  The citizens had been there and under the rule of a King and Queen for centuries. Chandra doubted that many of them could leave even if they wanted to. The rest of the continent of Areen had only been under their domain for the last seventy or so years when the royal couple had first come into power. The King's gift to his new Queen was to add half a continent to their domain. Chandra had heard Master Dreys talk about how prosperous and free the regions had been before the conquest that had put them under the King's rule.

  Chandra had little with which she could compare it. She had lived the entirety of her life within the walls of Master's estate in the small region of Malofa. In the entirety of her life, Chandra had only gone to the nearby village overseen by the estate three times. Each time had been with the Master at her side and never would she have considered going otherwise. Master kept his dealings with the village to a minimum as well. Chandra knew that it was not fear of being persecuted as a mage, but most likely Master's need for solitude.

  It was well-known throughout Malofa that Master Dreys, or Lord Dreys, held favor with the King and Queen. Chandra had even heard whisperings that Master had sent several villages "magic users" to their death at the hands of the monarchs. She couldn't believe it was true, but it struck her as exactly the type of rumor a man who sought privacy might set in motion. What she didn't know for certain was if the rumors about Master's connections to the royal family were another rumor or something else.

  A knock at the door interrupted Chandra's musings. She called entry and was surprised to hear the soft click of the door as it was unlocked from the outside. She hadn't realized she had been locked in. The thought crossed her mind that it was accidental. She was disabused of the notion when Chandra saw Andre and one of Master's guards stationed outside the door as a kitchen girl came in.

  Andre caught her eye for a moment, and Chandra fought the urge to shudder. The man's blue eyes were as cold as the winds that came from the north after harvest season. His bald head and the sharp ends of his white mustache and beard made her feel like he was the basis of all of the scary stories ever written about mages. The only difference was that Andre had no magic.

  The manservant had been with Master Dreys for most of his life, from what Chandra understood. Andre was one of the few people that Master ever listened to when he spoke which only happened on rare occasions. Chandra could only remember hearing Andre's voice twice in her life and both times it had been a shock to her ears. The pitch of the man's voice was more like that of a young boy instead of a man easily twice the age of Master Dreys and three times that of Chandra. When the door closed again, Chandra did shudder. It was as though his blue eyes were still on her despite the closed door between them.

  Chandra didn't know what to make of the locked door and guards. Master had always been strict, but this was new. She wondered if it was due to a loss of faith in her. The fleeting thought of running entered her mind again. An odd urge to laugh almost overwhelmed her.

  Running away had been a ridiculous thought before, but now it seemed impossible at best. How would Chandra ever get past the locked door, or the guard and Andre? Where would she even go if that was possible? Chandra couldn't even look at the kitchen girl after she set the meal tray on the table. The girl bobbed a curtsy and left the room. Chandra had no desire to eat. She pushed herself away from the table and circled it a few time as she and fought equal urges to scream, run, or throw things. She felt like the girl in the tale she had heard a servant telling her child one evening when she was raiding the kitchen after being denied dinner as punishment for her most recent failed spell.

  3

  Chandra had been ten years old when Master had sent her away without dinner. When the painful growling got to be too much, she snuck down the night-cloaked hallways to the kitchen.

  The child had been crying from a nightmare, and the young woman put the child on one of the big tables in the kitchen while she heated milk to give to the child. Chandra had only heard them coming because of the child's hiccuping cries as they came down the hall and had ducked behind the larder and settled into the shadows to wait for them to leave.

  "Shall I tell you a story?" the young woman asked, and the child sucked on two fingers and nodded. The little one couldn't have been more than four; half Chandra's age at the time. Her curly blonde hair stuck up at odd angles, and her soft face was red from tears around dark brown eyes.

  "Alright, I'll tell you the story of the Weaver," the woman said and stirred the pot.

  "Once, a young lass a bit older than you was in the forest and lost her way. It got dark, and she was scared, but she kept moving because she hoped that she would be able to find a hunter or farmer to help her find her way home.

  "Eventually, she found this beat-up cottag
e with a massive, overgrown garden behind it and a stream nearby. The lass decided that she would use it as a shelter until morning when she would better be able to find her way home.

  "The cottage had everything she needed, despite how it looked. It had fruit trees to feed her, clear, clean water to drink, and a fireplace where she could build a fire to stay warm. The lass made herself right at home. Once she had supped and quenched her thirst, she curled up at the fireplace to sleep.

  "It seemed to her that she had barely drowsed but a moment when the sun was suddenly shining on her and the birds called out their morning ruckus. She stood and stretched before walking away from the cottage without a second thought."

  The child gasped, and Chandra started in her hiding spot. The young servant smiled at the little girl and nodded.

  "She din say fank you?" the little one said, her eyes wide and her mouth open around the two forgotten fingers in residence.

  "She did not. Instead, she headed home. She was able to find the trail much faster with the sunlight overhead and hurried along because she was sure her Ma would whup her hide for being gone so long. But do you know what she found when she got back to the village?"

  "What?" the little one asked and Chandra mouthed the question as well.

  "The entire village was covered in white fluff. The doors were wedged closed and the chimneys full; everyone was trapped in their homes. The lass couldn't step on foot into the village because the wool was so thick that she wouldn't be able to walk through it.

  "An old blind beggar woman showed up to the lassies right and said, 'Well, isn't this a turn?'

  "The lass said, 'Who are you?' as she had never seen the blind woman before in the village, and it wasn't aught but a small place filled with no more than six families so that she would know.